Faced with the threat of massive bond defaults, state and local governments have taken proactive steps to deal with their problems and are thus likely to avoid disaster, investor Wilbur Ross told CNBC.

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has sparked more talk of a move to clean energy, and billionaire energy investor Boone Pickens, founder of BP Capital Management, is among those calling for action.

If anyone knows how investors can make big money from small-cap companies, it's Mark Keeley. His five-star Keeley Small Cap Value Fund is up an average of 23.7 percent per year over the last five years, and it even shows a 1 percent gain in this troubled year.

The oil patch's most famous investor admits he got it wrong. Just weeks after predicting an imminent slide in oil prices, Boone Pickens now sees the price of a barrel of oil holding around a hundred dollars for the rest of the year.